Social ‘Net’ – Working?

My generation will remember our 20s as the one that was spent in front of computers dissecting the ‘social networking’. The undeniable truth is that orkut, facebook, twitter etc. has taken away a significant portion of our time spent online. AFAIK, Social Networking Sites (let me use SNS from now on) is all about meeting people and sharing stuff. Unfortunately the concept of sharing has gone beyond its tolerance level . I’m sure that most of you will agree with me that SNS have significantly changed the way we live. May be not so glaringly visible, but in subtle ways.

Sharing was the USP of all SNS. What do people share? All kinds of junk. I’m not complaining about those who share useful stuff such as videos, photos, and interesting articles, but I’m against those who share stupidity of the highest degree. Why would I want to know your horoscope of the day when I even don’t give an damn about mine? Why would I want to know ‘How lucky you are today?’ or ‘who was you friend of the day?’ If you want try these apps, try it, but for god’s sake don’t share it. Facebook initially had an option of hiding an application and later removed due to advertising pressure. Now I’m left with the only option of ‘Hiding’ the entire person from my feeds.

Photos. Let’s consider a small case-study (typical b-school stuff!). You are a vacation with your friends. But a couple of them are so obsessed with taking pictures of theirs in all dimensions so that they can upload them in facebook/orkut and thereby losing the fun of traveling. They even had ‘profile pictures’ photo session! On the lighter side, I was so happy to look the disappointment in their faces when no one had commented on their pictures :) Many do the mistake of uploading photos where they eventually block the USP of a photo with their faces. The intention of the photos should be "I’ve been here. May be you should go there too. Or if you can’t, see it through my eyes". Rather, somehow many want to drive the point ‘I was here. But you are not!’. I do love watching photos that people upload when they are on a trip, but there are a few people whose pictures I avoid because I know what to expect!

There is a formula that you can use while setting status messages. X, Y, Z – Adjective. It works for anything. Here is a sample – ’10 hours of sleep, homemade food, tam channels all day – awesome’. Sounds good right? But when several of your friends keep a similar message, It's frustrating. You can fit anything in this formula – ‘unintelligent, boring, talkative – you stink’. See, it works for everything!

I hate status message like ‘Antarctica, here I come!’ (I had to carefully choose a place so that I don’t hurt anyone). So what do you expect ‘Antarctica’ to do? Give you a red carpet welcome with drums and champagne? What’s the intention of keeping this status message? Wouldn’t a simple ‘I’m going to Antarctica!’ or ‘In Antarctica!’ do? I’m not talking about those people who genuinely share their joy, but those who do it only to kindle up the envy on the not-so-fortunate.

I’ve done all these things as well. But I eventually grew out of it, but the majority hasn’t. Thanks to my limited internet access in Mumbai, I’ve started to realize how much I enjoy reading! Fellow IIML friends, if you have to deal with no internet (or limited access) during your summer internship, you are the most blessed.

Images copyrighted by to weblogcartoons.com and xkcd.com respectively.

If you agree/disagree with my views, do leave a comment :)